Cleaning an Old Mirror

I recently purchased an old Vanity Mirror. It is absolutely beautiful, but we have tried to clean it endlessly, but can't seem to get rid of some of the "dark-color" streaks. Any suggestions would be most-appreciated.

Recent Answers

Hi...and Thank You all for your suggestions and advice. Maybe it is indeed the silver-gone-bad theory. Might be pretty expensive to refinish it. It's a very large, heavy round mirror from the 1930's. Maybe I'll just get an estimate to see what it will cost to re-silver or replace. Thanks Again Everyone!...Fran

By .SPOILEDBRATTS (Guest Post)07/18/2006

HI USED ISOPROPYL RUBBING ALCOHOL IT WORKS GREAT FOR CLEANING ON ALL GLASSWARE GOOD LUCK.

My father used to have an antique shop and we also did furniture refinishing. It sounds like the mirror needs to be resilvered. If it is in a frame and that is the part you want to save, you can have the mirror part replaced. If the mirror itself is bevelled or etched and you want to save it, then take it to a professional and they can usually restore it to its original look.

By Bill (Guest Post)07/17/2006

The dark color streaks are caused by the silver on the back of your mirror gone bad, either from moisture getting to the back of the mirror or from age or from direct sun light over a long period of time. If you have the mirror re-silvered the bright new silver will make all the fine surface scratches stand out and you will not be happy with the re-silvering job. I would buy a new mirror.